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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

The formula A x B x C = X, where A is the number of vehicles in the field, B is the probable rate of failure, and C is the cost of out-of-court settlement for that failure

s/vehicles/GPUs/

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That line from Fight Club really needs a whole lotta asterisks and qualifications. There are plenty of forced-recall scenarios where the manufacturer would prefer to use the ABC<=X approach but are not allowed or simply over-ruled by government. Safety of life being the primary over-riding concern, for good reason.

I'm pretty surprised this issue has gotten as long in the tooth time wise as it has. I remember seeing a story about this ticking-timebomb power connector like 1.5 months ago and then heard nothing. I'm guessing there is scurrying behind the scenes between then and now, but you never know.

>I'm pretty surprised this issue has gotten as long in the tooth time wise as it has.

Just to remove ambiguity, are you saying that the ABC<=X is long in the tooth or that the Nvidia connector is?

"Good" stories like ABC<=X, McDonald's coffee too hot, etc are infamous for a reason lest someone forget and repeat.

The Nvidia 4090 power connector story is what I'm referring to.

Safety of life is not a boundless good. All of the good things around us come at some risk to life. Of course, the government's liability to overvalue safety (or to be more neutral, to inconsistently determine the value of safety) in a particular proceeding (be it before a court in a lawsuit or before a regulatory agency that might order a recall), is just another part of the calculation.

Ok, and? Aside from the pure theory banter, I expect the government to come down hard on a manufacturer when they knowingly ship a device with a sustained heat/power issue resulting in fires.

I'm pretty certain that safety of life is not the primary over-riding concern (also for good reason) - modern vehicles can be made much safer by requiring advanced safety features (see: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/cars-with-advance...) - but these aren't mandatory because there is a cost associated with each life saved, and, at some point, we as a society don't value human life as much as $$$ - so that's the line we draw.

The fight club reference is to internal information and decision making processes, it doesn’t imply that the company is the only thing that can decide to do a recall.

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